Evan’s eyes widened and he set down his gyro. “Oh lord, she didn’t drown, did she?”
“Worse than that.”
Zachary wasn’t sure he could go on telling this story. He wasn’t sure he could relive what had happened. But Evan was so encouraging, so understanding. Zachary closed his eyes and described the whole scene. What Melinda said to him, how that made him feel: he’d felt threatened, and he reacted with poor judgement, but he didn’t know what else to do. Nobody ever trained him how to take down a twelve-year-old with a crush. Maybe someone should have. Maybe Melinda would still be alive today.
“You can’t blame yourself,” Evan said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.
“I can’t not blame myself,” Zachary countered.
“It’s not your fault.”
“But it actually kind of is. She wa
